While I Still Have Seconds

If I die tomorrow,
let it not be said
that I spent today
asleep at the wheel of wonder.

Let it not be whispered
that I rationed beauty
or hoarded astonishment
for a time more convenient.

For I have tasted the ephemeral—
have traced the delicate seam
between now and never,
and I know this:
existence is a vanishing act.
A flicker.
A gasp.
A cathedral collapsing in reverse.

And so—
I will live while I still have seconds.

I will inhale the sky
like it is a sacred text,
let rain baptize my spine,
sing to strangers,
weep at sunsets
like they’re symphonies
written in light.

I will marvel at the mundane
until it gleams mythic:
the clink of a coffee spoon,
the crook of a lover’s elbow,
the way laughter
erupts like prophecy
in the middle of ordinary days.

I will kiss with abandon,
with poetry in my mouth
and no fear of punctuation.
I will dance barefoot
on grocery store tiles
if the song moves me.
I will not wait for permission
to be electric.

If tomorrow dissolves
before I touch it,
let me have lived
today
with ferocity,
with reverence,
with my whole ribcage
flung open like cathedral doors
welcoming every damn thing inside.

Joy. Grief. Wonder. Ache.
The bitter. The sacred.
The ache of wanting more
and the grace of having now.

I will not measure my life
in the milestones they gave me—
but in the micro-miracles
that pulsed through
every forgotten Tuesday.

I will not go quietly.

I will burn.
And bloom.
And break.
And love
so audaciously
that even the stars
will envy my urgency.

Because the truth is:
tomorrow is not promised.
But this breath is.
This second is.
And while I still have them,
I will live so wholly
that death
will have nothing left to take.